Report: Blood strawberries

Abstract

“inhuman, unprecedented and shameful”, saying the shootings were “foreign to Greek ethics”. But the Greek unions’ criticisms of the government are about the broader circumstances – the exploitative strawberry-production industry atlarge – as well as the instance of violence against the workers. Shortly after the shootings the GSEE accused the government of failing to properly monitor the conditions of migrant workers in the region. The GSEE has described the strawberry industry in the Nea Manolada area as a ‘state within a state’ where the exploitation of migrant workers is rife, and unions and activists called for a boycott of the ‘blood strawberries’ in the days following the shootings There are reports that about 6,000 migrants work in the region as strawberry pickers during the harvest season for wages that the local population could not accept or survive on. There is a particular injustice in this exploitation as strawberry production is a profitable industry, but employers pay poverty wages to undocumented workers – sometimes even resorting to slave labour – while one in four workers is unemployed in Greece. Migration, exploitation, and trafficking The ITUC has noted, in relation to this case, the growing problem of labour-related human trafficking . In its report on the shooting it explained: ‘According to the EU report published [in April 2013], the number of victims of human trafficking (including those trafficked for labour exploitation) is increasing in Europe. The number of identified or presumed victims mounted by 18 % between 2008 and 2010. During the same time period, however, the number of convictions for human trafficking fell by 13 per cent. Agreed in 2011, Directive 2011/36/EU on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims proposes higher penalties for offenders, increased protection for victims and aims to make prosecution easier. But so far, only 6 out of the 27 EU member states have fully transposed the EU Anti-Trafficking Directive into their national legislation, despite a deadline of 6 April, and Greece is obviously not among them. Human trafficking is worth an estimated 2.5 billion EUR in Europe alone, bringing easy, low-risk illicit profits to the exploiters and costing workers lost chances, damaged health, emotional suffering and more and more often a deadly danger for any attempt of standing up for rights’. Last year gunmen on a Greek farm shot and injured 35 strawberry pickers during a strike to demand unpaid wages INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 20 Volume 21 Issue 3 2014 ‘S wift and exemplary’ punishment was promised by Greek officials in the hours after farmers shot and injured 35 strawberry pickers working on their farm. 14 months later a court acquitted the farm’s owner and one of the shooters, while two others were convicted but released on bail pending appeal. The victims were Bangladeshi migrant workers who hadn’t been paid for over five months. In the weeks leading up to the attack the workers had gone on strike twice and were repeatedly promised that they would be paid their poverty wages (€22 per day, minus €6 for food and living costs) soon. As the strawberry pickers were undocumented migrants they felt that they could not approach the authorities for help. On 28 April 2013, after an unproductive meeting between the workers and the farm’s owner (wealthy fruit producer Nikos Vangelatos), three armed men arrived at the ‘camp’ where the workers were living and told them that they would be replaced. About 200 workers left the camp and went en masse to the strawberry fields where the three Greek men opened fire, injuring 35 before fleeing the scene. While no one suffered life-threatening injuries at least four workers were treated for serious wounds. The three gunmen and Vangelatos were tried for a range of offences including aggravated assault, grievous bodily harm, illegal possession of firearms and forced labour. Although the victims ’ case was sponsored by the UNHCR the three-member judicial panel reached the verdict in just 15 minutes and failed to give a reasoned decision. While the two gunmen who were convicted were sentenced to 14 years and seven months, and eight years and seven months, it is unclear whether the sentences will be upheld...